In: Anthology

F I S H   H E A D – Brian Gyamfi

I slit a piece of hallowed bread and ate.  

That afternoon, unsatisfied with the ginger-scented
pits, I bathed in cold water, stillness came.

The same stillness that paralyzed my feet at the service  
where men smothered divinity. 



The day I hosted the priest in the garden he stole a tomato. 
His solitude, reminiscent of my sound. Greenthread 

flowers walked out of the soil and gnawed beneath his feet.
I wanted the heat of a black tire, the whale named Furnace 

on the boat harbored by a continent I once visited,
where the devil was a place. The orange, the television,

the orange, the black-lit wires in the dark. 
The priest stared into the sun – the horizon falling 

into his throat. A battle between two whales broke the sea. 
My own ship-eater visioned in a book. A season of birthing   

without a midwife. “Get the fucking towel Paul!”



I slit them. Each cut smoked and flourished. 
I became heaven, water flowing from flesh, 

blemish-black ginger scent. The priest left the crust
and I smiled like an old man’s

house, sadden to see crumbs scattered, a hopscotch 
in blur. 


Brian Gyamfi is a Ghanaian-American writer from Texas. He is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, two Hopwood Awards, and a finalist for the National Poetry Series and the Poetry International Prize. He is a contributing editor at Oxford Poetry.

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